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Friday, February 28, 2014

While on a very short vacation, I visited Kasaragod beach which is at a distance of a mere two kilometers from my husband's place. Along with my sister-in -law and her kid, we three watched a beautiful sunset. The kids went crazy playing with sand and waves and had a gala time.Some memories captured by my camera...

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Time weaves a tapestry of memories. In
my case, some areas of this fascinating tapestry are prettier and fonder, while
some others elicit a forgotten ache in my heart.

I have a memento I cherish from a
happy and carefree past. My three awesome friends presented it to me as a
parting gift. I carry it around with me wherever I go. It is a lucky
charm to me.

"Girls always love gold" (Reason for giving me the gift)

Let me tell you a little about them. They were my colleagues in Dubai Metro and we bonded like real siblings
while there. Sanjeev Bharadwaj (Sanju), Navneeth Kalangi (Pandu) and Anas
Mohammad formed this amazing trio.

All three were in their early twenties.
Each one was unique and I guess what endeared them to me was their innocence.
There was no malice or spite in their hearts. They loved to smile and make
others smile.

Sanjeev was a prankster, Anas courted
mishaps at site and Pandu was sensitive and child- like among the three. He
would end up fighting with the other two, and I would play the agony aunt.

Sanjeev once called me early in the
morning while on night shift just to pester me and recorded the expletives I
showered on him. Later he played it amidst much fanfare during a lunch hour.

Whenever some accidents happened
on-site, Anas would be the site - in- charge without doubt. Once a pipe which
was not shown in the utility drawings of Dewa (Dubai Electicity and Water
Authority), burst while pile driving, leaving a poor Anas standing watching as
a fountain of water shot up in front of the office of our client, the RTA (Road
and Transport Authority). Another time an Egyptian met with an accident at
midnight hitting the traffic barriers at his site while he was on duty.

Pandu was senior by experience and we
would look up to him to guide us about the kind of work happening on site and
about how to deal with our managers who were polar opposites of each other.

Glimpses from the farewell dinner

When I quit work in 2008, we vowed to
each other to be in touch and thankfully, we still are.

Friendship :)

All three are a bit angry with me, as
I could not attend any of their marriages. However, their wives are my friends
already.

Thank you for being in my life.

"This post is my entry for the ‘My Most Memorable Memento’ contest conducted by My Yatra Diary travel blogandIndian Coupons."I invite from anitaexplorer.blogspot.in,Ayesha from http://aayesha1611.blogspot.in/Sreesha http://petrichorandclouds.blogspot.in/ to participate in this contest.

Sunday, February 23, 2014

My earliest
memory of Aunty Acid still manages to make me cringe. It was just a long and crazy
day, that day more than two decades ago. I had joined my gang of friends in a game
of hopscotch in the barren land near her house.

“With the skin color that you have, no one worthy will ever marry you. Only fair girls get the best grooms,” she shouted at me ending her prediction with a maniacal laughter. I ran
off crying, cursing the skin I was born with and wondering what prompted her
to bug me in that way in front of my friends.

May be she
was speaking from her experience, given that she was at least five shades darker
than I was. My granny fumed when I narrated what had happened and then came near me armed with a few red chilies and a pinch of salt. She moved them in a few
circles around me, muttering some mantras and then threw them in fire.

“There burn
all the negativity she spewed on you. Phew...See how much powerful her venom
is?!!” said granny watching them spluttering and fume.

Nevertheless,
the ritual did not prevent me from having a nightmare about being married to an alcoholic,
wife-beating husband like that of Aunty Acid and wake up screaming. It haunted me for
a long time and I thought no one would ever love me.

Years passed
and Aunty Acid continued to belch poison on others and me. Kids avoided her like
plague; her words were like Acid and left an indelible mark. We all unanimously
agreed that someone with his or her brain in the right place had named her Aunty Acid.

There was a rumor
that, if she caressed a plant lovingly, it wilted the next day. If she praised
anyone, instead of being happy, the object of her praise panicked. Such was the terror.

When I was
awaiting my entrance results, she told me I did not stand a chance. Reason
being that her daughter, who was doubly intelligent than me, had not cracked
it. Again, fate proved her wrong and like everyone, I started to covet her negative
comments.

One day
during my semester exam time, Aunty Acid declared that no sane person would
marry an arrogant girl like me after I declined to visit her, leaving
my studies halfway through. My parents beamed hearing it. That was a positive
sign indeed.

After our
engagement, with my heart threatening with a heart attack, I heard my fiance answer
my query that he does not drink, not even socially. Phew…. I thanked Aunty Acid
heartily. From then on, I deliberately made Aunty Acid angry, praying secretly that she erupt like a volcano.

Aunty Acid
predicted my marriage will end within a year and that I will not ever have
peace in my husband’s house.

I celebrated
my tenth wedding anniversary last year and my in-laws still dot on me.

Aunty Acid
still grinds her teeth when she sees me and I eagerly await the blessings that are about
to be showered on me.

This time when I visited her, I went with a bag full of Cadbury 5 star, with a selfless aim
to cure her acid tongue.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

The United Kingdom has always been a charming world for me, to be
exact, right from my childhood. The main reasons have been Literature and
Nature.

The boarding school stories, theFamous
fiveand theSecret Sevenby Enid Blyton coloured my childhood
memories. Through these stories, a part of me began living a secret life, a
life as portrayed in these enchanting stories. I longed to live in a boarding
school like Elizabeth Allen of ‘The Naughtiest Girl’ series. I wished to
solve a mystery like the kids in ‘Famous Five’ and ‘Secret Seven’. More than
that, I started craving for an English breakfast complete with muffins, scones,
hot cakes and creamy porridge. I decided, come what may, I was going to study
in the UK.

Time flew and my dreams of studying in the UK remained just
that- Dreams. As a teenager, I graduated into serious
literature and interests. Then Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Shakespeare,
Wordsworth, Coleridge and Charles Dickens arrived on scene, pulling me back to
UK with their vivid descriptions. This time the addiction was bad. I longed to
visit the land of birth of a thousand sonnets. I wanted to see the places where
my favourite writers created their masterpieces.

The land which has also the most unpredictable and
varied climate intrigued me. The visuals online of the wildest winters, the wet
and mild spring, the warm summers and the picturesque autumn, tempted me
further.

Fate, but soon chose a different path for me. A new interest in engineering, made the literature-lover in me,
take a back seat. I completed my Civil Engineering degree and immersed myself
in a world ofConstruction
drawings,QuotationsandQuantity
surveying.

With the birth of a son, I took a sabbatical from work and that
was when the writing- bug bit me. I began content writing as a way of working
from home and started a blog as well.

I now wish to apply for this short-term course on creative writing
from UK. Which place can be greater than Great Britain when it comes to
creative writing in English? The details about the course are so alluring. The
best thing is, it is a scholarship course.

I sincerely hope, I will get a chance to fulfill my dreams. I wish
that the little girl in me, who cherished to see the sunlight shining on the dew
drops on daffodils, will at last breath the air which stirred the muse in many
great minds.

While composing this post, another snippet at http://knowledgeisgreat.in/ caught my attention and an additional and
loftier dream resurfaced. An Engineering Management course, right there at theUniversity of York, beckons me
to fulfill another of my long cherished dream. I was always good on the
management side in engineering and the description given below speaks my story.
No wonder, I involuntarily dusted out another forgotten dream.

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Another Versatile Blogger Award came calling almost a month back. My grey cells were so lost in the shine and sheen of it that I forgot all about the requirement of an acceptance post. I had left it unseen in a far away corner of my Indimail where it had begun to gather dust. It had come from a blog called Petrichor and Clouds, send by Sreesha Divakaran; who dreams of little smiles and tummy butterflies.

Today, I remembered it, dusted it with a velvet cloth and there it was, back to it former glory.

1) I can't live without reading for more than a day. When I don't have anything new to read I go back to re-read some of my favorite books. I have lost the number of times I have read Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice and Harry Potter.

2) I love doodling. Most of the pages of my books used to be filled with doodles of faces. Happy faces, sad faces; all reflecting my mood.

3) I am an internet addict. Especially after I started my blog and became a member of Indiblogger, I am always online. I panic when my WiFi shows no signal.

4) I believe that Kitchen is a lab and cooking needs constant R&D. I do it everyday and my family are the unsuspecting guinea pigs.

5) I believe in God. I have added another to the list of gods I already believe in. Google-eshwari... I simply can't do without her. Ask her anything, within seconds you have it. Which other God is so prompt?

6) Once upon a time... is my favorite tagline. Read me a fairy-tale anytime and I will snuggle and go to sleep, dreaming about a prince and a happily-ever-after.

7) My craziest dream is to own a Time-machine (or invent one) so that I am able to go back in time and undo all the mistakes I now realize I did in my past.

So that is it....

Here are the list of my nominees for the Versatile Blogger Award.

Mridula.. I know you are busy to accept this...but,You are my Versatile No.1...Anita, the most Versatile Bollywood fan..

Sakshi Nanda, I have spend half my day going through your posts. They are addictive.Keep Blogging and inspiring.

Pallavi and Nabanitha ... I don't know why, but I keep thinking of you both as sisters. (I know you are not..;))

Indrani... I absolutely love your Versatile Photography. I cannot pass by your blog and not comment. I feel guilty.

Sindhu Devi K, you are Versatile to the core. Arts and Me and Tantu keeps me dazed.

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Kids learn fast when the lessons are taught through song and dance.There are some amazing websites online, which helped me educate my son. A few minutes a day goes a long way in developing their interest in learning.Some of my son's favorite websites are:1)Starfall.com

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Years ago, there was a five-year-old girl, who never went to bed without listening to her favorite bedtime story about the Hunter and the four friends. Listening to it every day, she knew it verbatim. If her parents left out a single word, she would start howling.

The Hunter and the four friends became a terror to the parents and the book went underground quite frequently. However, the girl would search it out and the ordeal of the parents will begin anew.

Years later, the history is repeating itself….

She is the mother to a five-year-old now and this time the culprits are the ‘Three Billy goats Gruff’.

That is what I call ‘Karma’. What goes around comes around…Never doubt it!!

No points for guessing who the girl is though...

P.S: I am secretly making a list of things I did as a child. It helps to be prepared...right?!!